Bryan Blauvelt Photography

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Bryan Blauvelt Photography

📷 Ultralight Camera Solutions Brand Ambassador
✈️ Bluewater Travel Trip Leader
🥇🥈Awarded UPY 2024, 2025, 2026
Sony🔹Nauticam🔹Retra UWT

06/18/2026

📷 Emperor Shrimp (Zenopontonia rex)
📍 Koala, November 2025
🇵🇭 Anilao, Philippines

The Emperor Shrimp (Zenopontonia rex) is one of the reef’s most fascinating hitchhikers. This tiny crustacean spends much of its life riding on sea cucumbers and nudibranchs, using them for transport and protection while blending seamlessly with the host. Their commensal relationship offers a glimpse into the intricate ecological connections that make aquatic ecosystems so diverse and remarkable.

Sony A1, Sony FE 90mm f/2.8 Macro G OSS, Kraken Sports +6 M67 Macro Diopter, Retra Pro Max II strobes with Ultralight Camera Solutions clamps and arms.

06/04/2026

📷 Ambon Scorpionfish (Pteroidichthys amboinensis)
📍 Lembeh Strait, April 2026
🇮🇩 North Sulawesi, Indonesia

The Ambon Scorpionfish (Pteroidichthys amboinensis) is one of the ocean's most impressive masters of camouflage. Found throughout the Indo-Pacific on sandy, muddy, and algae-covered bottoms, this unusual scorpionfish uses its frilly skin, mottled colors, and leaf-like appearance to blend seamlessly into detritus on the seafloor. Rather than chasing its prey, it relies on ambush tactics, remaining perfectly still until an unsuspecting fish or crustacean wanders within striking distance. Despite its cryptic appearance, the Ambon Scorpionfish is a favorite photo subject in Lembeh thanks to its distinctive shape and remarkable ability to disappear into its surroundings.

Sony A1, Sony FE 100mm f/2.8 Macro GM, Nauticam MFO-1, Retra Pro Max II strobes with Ultralight Camera Solutions clamps and arms.

05/15/2026

📷 Pink Eye Goby (Bryaninops natans)
📍 Lembeh Strait, April 2026
🇮🇩 North Sulawesi, Indonesia

Tiny, translucent, and easy to miss, the Pink Eye Goby (Bryaninops natans) spends its life hovering among Acropora corals in shallow waters on Indo-Pacific reefs. They like to occasionally pause their quick, darting movements to sit on the tips of the coral branches, making a nice pose for a photo. This image was created in the shallows at Pintu Colada.

Sony A1, Sony FE 100mm f/2.8 Macro GM, Nauticam MFO-1, Retra Pro Max II strobes with Ultralight Camera Solutions clamps and arms.

05/11/2026

•Made with Retra Flash•

This post is part of a series of images by photographers that were awarded on the UPY 2026 and are made with the Retra Flash. Congratulations to all!

Bryan H. Blauvelt's highly commended 'Chromatic Reef' frames a delicate pink and peach sea fan against the deep blue waters of Fiji's Vatu-i-Ra Conservation Park.

04/30/2026

📷 Coconut Octopus (Amphioctopus marginatus)
📍 Lembeh Strait, April 2026
🇮🇩 North Sulawesi, Indonesia

The coconut octopus (Amphioctopus marginatus) is a small, remarkably intelligent cephalopod native to the tropical waters of the Indo-Pacific, particularly around Indonesia, the Philippines and northern Australia. What sets this species apart is extraordinary tool-using behavior. It is one of the few invertebrates documented collecting and carrying coconut shell halves across the seafloor, assembling them into portable shelters when needed. This deliberate behavior has raised fascinating questions about cognition in animals without a centralized brain. The coconut octopus can also engage in “stilt walking,” an almost comical bipedal gait on two of its arms while the remaining six clutch its shell collection, making it one of the most behaviorally complex creatures in the ocean.

Sony A1, Sony FE 100mm f/2.8 Macro GM, Nauticam MFO-3, Retra Pro Max II strobes with Ultralight Camera Solutions clamps and arms.

03/31/2026

📷 Silky Shark (Carcharhinus falciformis)
📍 Farallón, February 2025
🇨🇺 Jardines de la Reina, Cuba

Jardines de la Reina (“Gardens of the Queen”) is a remote archipelago off southern Cuba, spanning Camagüey and Ciego de Ávila. Named by Christopher Columbus in honor of Spain's Queen Isabella I, it has been protected as a vast marine reserve since 1996.

The underwater landscape includes healthy mangroves, and some of the healthiest reef remaining in the Caribbean. Jardines de la Reina also hosts abundant silky and Caribbean reef sharks.

In this image, silky sharks are seen patrolling at sunset. As active crepuscular predators, they display increased hunting activity around dusk and into the night. As hunters, silky sharks are know for speed, agility, and a strong sense of curiosity, taking advantage of low-light conditions to surprise their prey.

03/20/2026

📷 Golden Medusa (Mastigias papua)
📍 Jellyfish Lake, February 2026
🇮🇩 Misool, Raja Ampat, Indonesia

Mastigias papua is a species of jellyfish commonly known as the lagoon jelly, famous for its unique symbiotic relationship with photosynthetic algae living in its tissues. Found in marine lakes like those in Indonesia and Palau, it relies partly on sunlight for energy, which is why it migrates daily across the water to follow the sun. Unlike many jellyfish, its sting is very mild and harmless to humans. This species has adapted to isolated environments, leading to distinct populations with slight variations in appearance and behavior.

02/27/2026

l am honored to share that my image,
"Chromatic Reef," has been selected as Highly Commended in the Coral Reefs category of the Underwater Photographer of the Year Contest 2026.

It’s a great feeling to have been chosen out of a field of over 7900 entries by this esteemed panel of judges including Alex Mustard Underwater Photography, Tobias Friedrich and Peter Rowlands.

I made it a goal to someday place an image in UPY back in 2022. I never imagined this would lead to recognition three years in a row. Wow! I am mind-blown and so grateful.

THANK YOU to the judges, and especially to my wife Rachel for her love and support of my constant travels in pursuit of my photography obsession. I truly could not do it without her.

Congratulations to all of the awarded photographers, such an amazing collection of images for

02/05/2026

📷 Mexichromis trilineata
📍 Secret Bay, November 2025
🇵🇭 Anilao, Philippines

This tiny little nudibranch, roughly the size of a pumpkin seed, made for a great subject at Secret Bay on a morning where the current really picked up during our dive. If you've never dived a barren muck slope in moving water, trying to photograph much of anything can become frustrating very quickly. Fortunately for me, this beautiful nudi was hanging out on the one big coral bommie that sits at about 80 feet, providing some shelter from the current and giving me a chance to use my snoot and create an image.

01/22/2026

📷 Nurse Shark (Ginglymostoma cirratum)
📍 La Francesa, January 2026
🇲🇽 Cozumel, Quintana Roo, Mexico

A curious nurse shark slowly cruising La Francesa reef in Cozumel.
Fun diving this week with Rene Huemer Photographer and Scuba Life Cozumel!

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http://www.bryanblauvelt.com/

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